Political Interest Groups

The decades following World War II saw a proliferation of interest
groups that evolved into increasingly active and politically conscious
associations. The growth of these groups was part of a general trend
toward a more politicized and pluralistic society. This trend resulted
primarily from factors such as the advent of multiparty politics,
economic development and the accompanying expansion of opportunity, and
improvements in communications (see Mass Media, this ch.). Increasing
urbanization, rising literacy rates, rapid industrial expansion, and the
exposure of hundreds of thousands of Turkish guest workers--most from
villages and lower-class urban areas--to new ideas and customs in
Western Europe also contributed to the politicization of the populace.
As a consequence, a growing number of voluntary associations sprang up
to promote specific interests, either on their own, through
representatives in parliament, or through the cabinet and senior
bureaucrats. These associations enabled various social groups to
exercise a degree of influence over political matters. The activities of
groups such as labor unions, business associations, student
organizations, a journalists' association, and religious and cultural
associations promoted public awareness of important issues and
contributed to a relatively strong civil society.

The autonomy of civic groups vis-à-vis the state has been a
persistent political problem since 1960. During periods of military rule
and martial law, the independence of such groups often was circumscribed
(see Crisis in Turkish Democracy, ch. 1). Following the military
takeover in September 1980, for example, strict limits were placed on
the political activities of civic associations; some of these
restrictions remained in force in early 1995. For example, the 1982
constitution, like that of 1961, affirms the right of individuals to
form associations but also stipulates that the exercise of this right
must not violate the "indivisible integrity of the state."
Furthermore, associations are prohibited from discriminating on the
basis of language, race, or religion, or from trying to promote one
social class or group over others. Civic associations also are forbidden
to pursue political aims, engage in political activities, receive
support from or give support to political parties, or take joint action
with labor unions or professional organizations. In addition,
legislation enacted in 1983 prohibits teachers, high school students,
civil servants, and soldiers from forming associations, and bans
officials of professional organizations from participating actively in
politics.

Military

By dint of the influence it has exerted on politics since the early
days of the Turkish republic, the military constitutes the country's
most important interest group. Atatürk and his principal allies all
were career officers during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Although Atatürk subsequently endeavored to separate the military from
political affairs, he nevertheless considered the army to be the
"intelligentsia of the Turkish nation" and "the guardian
of its ideals." By the time of Atatürk's death in 1938, the
military had internalized a view of itself as a national elite
responsible for protecting the Six Arrows of Kemalism. Prior to 1960,
the military worked behind the scenes to ensure that the country adhered
to the guidelines of the Kemalist principles. However, in 1960 senior
officers were so alarmed by government policies they perceived as
deviating from Kemalism that they intervened directly in the political
process by overthrowing the elected government and setting up a military
regime. The military saw its mission as putting the country back on the
correct path of Kemalism. Believing by October 1961 that this goal had
been achieved, the officers returned to the barracks, whence they
exercised oversight of civilian politicians.

The 1960 coup demonstrated the military's special status as an
interest group autonomous--if it chose to be--from the government. On
two subsequent occasions, in 1971 and 1980, the military again
intervened to remove a government it perceived as violating Kemalist
principles. The 1980 coup resulted in a longer transition period to
civilian government and the imposition of more extensive restrictions on
political rights than had the earlier interventions. At the start of
1995, some fourteen years after the coup, senior officers in the armed
services still expected the civilian president and Council of Ministers
to heed their advice on matters they considered pertinent to national
security. For instance, the military defines many domestic law-and-order
issues as falling within the realm of national security and thus both
formulates and implements certain policies that the government is
expected to approve.

Universities

College teachers and students have acted as a pressure group in
Turkey since the late 1950s, when they initiated demonstrations against
university teaching methods, curricula, and administrative practices
that they alleged resulted in an inadequate education. The violent
repression of student demonstrations in the spring of 1960 was one of
the factors that prompted that year's military coup. In 1960 both
teachers and students generally were held in high public esteem because
the universities were viewed as the centers where the future Kemalist
elite was being trained. During the 1960s and 1970s, however, the
universities became the loci of ideological conflicts among a multitude
of political groups espousing diverse political, economic, and religious
ideas. As students became progressively more radicalized and violent,
armed clashes among rival student groups and between students and police
increased in frequency and magnitude. By 1980 the military regarded the
universities as a source of threats to Kemalist principles.

One of the aims of the military government that assumed power in 1980
was to regain state control over the universities. The regime created a
Council of Higher Education, which was intended to provide a less
autonomous, more uniform system of central administration. The regime
purged ideologically suspect professors from the faculties of all
universities and issued a law prohibiting teachers from joining
political parties. Student associations lost their autonomy, and
students charged with participating in illegal organizations became
subject to expulsion. A cautious revival of campus political activity
began in the 1990s, mainly around foreign policy issues. However, as of
early 1995 the government's possession of the means and will to punish
campus activists appeared to be intimidating most faculty and students.

Labor

The legalization of unions under the Trade Union Law of 1947 paved
the way for the slow but steady growth of a labor movement that evolved
parallel to multiparty politics. The principal goal of unions as defined
in the 1947 law was to seek the betterment of members' social and
economic status. Unions were denied the right to strike or to engage in
political activity, either on their own or as vehicles of political
parties. In spite of these limitations, labor unions gradually acquired
political influence. The Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türkiye
Isçi Sendikalari Konfederasyonu--Türk-Is) was founded in 1952 at
government instigation to serve as an independent umbrella group. Under
the tutelage of Türk-Is, labor evolved into a well-organized interest
group; the organization also functioned as an agency through which the
government could restrain workers' wage demands (see Human Resources and
Trade Unions, ch. 3). The labor movement expanded in the liberalized
political climate of the 1960s, especially after a union law enacted in
1963 legalized strikes, lockouts, and collective bargaining. However,
unions were forbidden to give "material aid" to political
parties. Political parties also were barred from giving money to unions
or forming separate labor organizations.

The labor movement did not escape the politicization and polarization
that characterized the 1960s and 1970s. Workers' dissatisfaction with Türk-Is
as the representative of their interests led to the founding in 1967 of
the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Trade Unions of Turkey (Türkiye
Devrimçi Isçi Sendikalari Konfederasyonu--DISK). DISK leaders were
militants who had been expelled from Türk-Is after supporting a glass
factory strike opposed by the Türk-Is bureaucracy. Both Türk-Is and
the government tried to suppress DISK, whose independence was perceived
as a threat. However, a spontaneous, two-day, pro-DISK demonstration by
thousands of laborers in Istanbul--the first mass political action by
Turkish workers--forced the government in June 1970 to back away from a
bill to abolish DISK. For the next ten years, DISK remained an
independent organization promoting the rights of workers and supporting
their job actions, including one major general strike in 1977 that led
to the temporary abolition of the military-run State Security Courts. By
1980 about 500,000 workers belonged to unions affiliated with DISK.

Following the 1980 coup, the military regime banned independent union
activity, suspended DISK, and arrested hundreds of its activists,
including all its top officials. The government prosecuted DISK leaders,
as well as more than 1,000 other trade unionists arrested in 1980, in a
series of trials that did not end until December 1986. The secretary
general of DISK and more than 250 other defendants received jail
sentences of up to ten years. Meanwhile, the more complaisant Türk-Is,
which had not been outlawed after the coup, worked with the military
government and its successors to depoliticize workers. As the
government-approved labor union confederation, Türk-Is benefited from
new laws pertaining to unions. For example, the 1982 constitution
permits unions but prohibits them from engaging in political activity,
thus effectively denying them the right to petition political
representatives. As in the days prior to 1967, unions must depend upon Türk-Is
to mediate between them and the government. A law issued in May 1983
restricts the establishment of new trade unions and places constraints
on the right to strike by banning politically motivated strikes, general
strikes, solidarity strikes, and any strike considered a threat to
society or national well-being.

The government's restrictions on union activity tended to demoralize
workers, who generally remained passive for more than five years after
the 1980 coup. However, beginning in 1986 unions experienced a
resurgence. In February several thousand workers angered by pension
cutbacks held a rally--labor's first such demonstration since the 1980
coup--to protest high living costs, low wages, high unemployment, and
restrictions on union organizing and collective bargaining. A subsequent
rally in June drew an estimated 50,000 demonstrators. Since 1986 workers
have conducted numerous rallies, small strikes, work slowdowns, and
other manifestations of dissatisfaction. By the early 1990s, an average
of 120,000 workers per year were involved in strike activity. Türk-Is
has mediated these incidents by bailing detained workers out of prison,
negotiating compromise wage increase packages, and encouraging
cooperative labor-management relations.

Business

The Turkish Trade Association (Türkiye Odalar Birligi--TOB) has
represented the interests of merchants, industrialists, and commodity
brokers since 1952. In the 1960s and 1970s, new associations
representing the interests of private industry challenged TOB's position
as the authoritative representative of business in Turkey. Subsequently
the organization came to be identified primarily with small and
medium-sized firms. The Union of Chambers of Industry was founded in
1967 as a coalition within TOB by industrialists seeking to reorganize
the confederation. The Union of Chambers of Industry was unable to
acquire independent status but achieved improved coordination of
industrialists' demands. By setting up study groups, the union was able
to pool research on development projects. In addition, the union
organized regional Chambers of Industry within TOB.

Business interests also were served by employers' associations that
dealt primarily with labor-management relations and were united under
the aegis of the Turkish Confederation of Employers' Unions (Türkiye
Isveren Sendikalari Konfederasyonu--TISK). This confederation was
established in 1961, largely in response to the development of trade
unions, and was considered the most militant of employers' associations.
By the end of 1980, TISK claimed 106 affiliated groups with a total
membership of 9,183 employers. Although membership in TISK was open to
employers in both the private and public sectors, it was primarily an
organization of private-sector employers. When the military regime took
power in 1980, labor union activities were suspended, but TISK was
allowed to continue functioning. Employers supported the subsequent
restrictive labor legislation, which appeared to be in accord with TISK
proposals.

Another representative of business interests, the Turkish
Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (Türk Sanayiçileri ve Is
Adamlari Dernegi--TÜSIAD), was founded by the leaders of some of
Turkey's largest business and industrial enterprises soon after the
March 1971 military coup. Its aim was to improve the image of business
and to stress its concern with social issues. At the same time, TÜSIAD
favored granting greater control of investment capital to the large
industrialists at the expense of the smaller merchant and banking
interests usually supported by TOB. TÜSIAD's leaders also were
concerned with the widening economic inequalities between regions and
social classes and opposed TISK's extreme antilabor policies, which they
perceived as jeopardizing Turkey's chances of entering the European
Union.

Religious Interests

Turkey officially has been a secular state since 1924. Atatürk
viewed attachment to religion as an impediment to modernization and
imposed rigorous restrictions on the practice of Islam (see Secularist
Reforms, ch. 2). Until the late 1940s, the separation of mosque and
state was rigidly enforced by the authoritarian, one-party government.
However, secularism remained an elite ideology, whereas Islam, the
nominal religion of 98 percent of the population, continued to be a
strong influence on most of the people, especially in rural areas and
lower-class urban neighborhoods. The advent of competitive politics in
1950 enabled religion to reacquire a respected public status. Initially
the Democrat Party, then most other parties, found it politically
expedient to appeal to religious sentiments in election campaigns. As
the government gradually became more tolerant of religious expression,
both public observance of religious festivals and mosque construction
increased. In addition, there was a resurgence of voluntary religious
associations, including the tarikatlar ( sing., tarikat
--see Glossary). Prior to 1970, however, religion was not a political
issue.

The formation of the MSP in 1972 as Turkey's first republican party
to espouse openly Islamic principles inaugurated the politicization of
the religious issue (see Retreat from Secularism, ch. 2). The MSP
attracted a following by providing an Islamic defense of traditional
values that were eroding as a consequence of the economic and social
changes the country had begun to experience in the late 1960s. In
effect, religion became a vehicle for expressing popular discontent. The
inability of the major political parties to agree on policies to
counteract this discontent tended to enhance the influence of minor
parties such as the MSP. Indeed, in 1974 the main exponent of Kemalist
secularism, the CHP, invited the MSP, by then the third largest party in
parliament, to join it in a coalition government. Its participation in
the government provided the MSP, and the Islamic movement more broadly,
with an aura of political legitimacy. Subsequently, the MSP sponsored an
Islamist youth movement that during the late 1970s engaged other
militant youth groups--both socialists on the left and secular
nationalists on the right--in armed street battles. In the mosques,
numerous voluntary associations were formed to undertake religious
studies, devotional prayers, charitable projects, social services, and
the publication of journals. Even the minority Shia (see Glossary)
Muslims organized their own separate groups (see The Alevi, ch. 2).

The 1980 coup only temporarily interrupted the trend toward increased
religious observance. Initially, the military regime arrested Erbakan
and other MSP leaders and put them on trial for politically exploiting
religion in violation of Turkish law. However, the senior officers,
although committed to secularism, wanted to use religion as a counter to
socialist and Marxist ideologies and thus refrained from interfering
with the tarikatlar and other voluntary religious associations.
Furthermore, the generals approved an article in the 1982 constitution
mandating compulsory religious instruction in all schools. When
political parties were allowed to form in 1983, Özal's Motherland Party
welcomed a large group of former MSP members, who probably were
attracted to the party because Özal and some of his relatives had
belonged to the MSP in the 1970s. One of Özal's brothers, Korkut Özal,
held an important position in the Naksibendi tarikat , the
oldest and largest organized religious order in Turkey.

The military regime was preoccupied with eliminating the threat from
"communists," a term freely applied to anyone with socialist
ideas. Thousands of persons lost jobs in state offices, schools, and
enterprises because they were perceived as "leftists," and
leftist organizations virtually disappeared. Religiously motivated
persons assumed many of the vacated positions, especially in education,
and Islamic groups filled the political vacuum created by the state's
successful assault on the left. At the same time, the policies of
neither the military regime nor its civilian successors effectively
addressed the economic and social problems that continued to fuel
popular discontent.

Without competition from the left, the religious orders and the
religiously oriented Welfare Party enjoyed almost a monopoly on the
mobilization of discontent. One tarikat , the boldly political
Fethullahçi, actually tried to recruit cadets in the military
academies. By 1986 the increasingly vociferous and militant activities
of religious groups had forced on the defensive the concept of
secularism itself--a bedrock of Kemalist principles for sixty years.

In 1987 the military had become persuaded that what it called
"Islamic fundamentalism" was a potentially serious threat to
its vision of Kemalism. In January 1987, President Evren publicly
denounced Islamic fundamentalism as being as dangerous as communism.
Initially, the secular political elite, with the exception of the SHP,
was not persuaded by his arguments. Özal, then prime minister, seemed
to support the Islamic wing of his party, which was pushing for the
repeal of the remaining laws restricting religious practices. The True
Path Party characterized the trend toward religious observance as a
healthy development and stressed freedom of practice. However, as
clandestine religious groups began to carry out attacks on noted
secularists in the late 1980s, True Path Party leaders became concerned,
and then alarmed, by the influence of Islamism (sometimes seen as
fundamentalism).

The Welfare Party disassociated itself from violent attacks by both
organized and unorganized religious fanatics, but such attacks increased
in both frequency and severity in the 1990s. The most sensational attack
occurred in July 1993, when a mob leaving Friday congregational prayers
in the central Anatolian city of Sivas firebombed a hotel where Turkey's
internationally renowned author, self-proclaimed atheist Aziz Nesin, and
dozens of other writers were staying while attending a cultural
festival. Although Nesin escaped harm, thirty-seven persons were killed
and 100 injured in that incident. Several weeks before the attack,
Nesin's newspaper, Aydinlik , had published translated excerpts
of British author Salman Rushdie's controversial 1988 novel, The
Satanic Verses , which many Muslim religious leaders had condemned
as blasphemous. Following publication of the excerpts, the newspaper's
offices in Istanbul and other cities were attacked by groups of Islamic
militants.

Turkey's religious revival has foreign policy implications because
the tarikatlar tend to link with religious groups in other
Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia, for example, has been an important
source of the extensive financial support that has enabled the tarikatlar
to proselytize and to operate charitable programs that enhance their
political influence. Turkish political leaders also fear the influence
of neighboring Iran, where an Islamic government replaced the secular
regime in 1979, and since 1987 have tended to blame incidents of
religious violence on Iranian agents. However, Turkey's religious
activists are Sunni (see Glossary) Muslims who tend to display suspicion
and prejudice toward Shia Muslims--who make up more than 90 percent of
the Iranian population--and there has been scant evidence to support the
existence of significant ties between the Turkish Sunni and Iran.

Minorities

At least 15 percent of Turkey's population consists of ethnic and
religious minorities. The Kurds are the minority group with the greatest
impact on national politics. Since the 1930s, Kurds have resisted
government efforts to assimilate them forcibly, including an official
ban on speaking or writing Kurdish. Since 1984 Kurdish resistance to
Turkification has encompassed both a peaceful political struggle to
obtain basic civil rights for Kurds within Turkey and a violent armed
struggle to obtain a separate Kurdish state. The leaders of the
nonviolent struggle have worked within the political system for the
recognition of Kurdish cultural rights, including the right to speak
Kurdish in public and to read, write, and publish in Kurdish. Prior to
1991, these Kurds operated within the national political parties, in
particular the SHP, the party most sympathetic to their goal of full
equality for all citizens of Turkey. President Özal's 1991 call for a
more liberal policy toward Kurds and for the repeal of the ban on
speaking Kurdish raised the hopes of Kurdish politicians. Following the
parliamentary elections of October 1991, several Kurdish deputies,
including Hatip Dicle, Feridun Yazar, and Leyla Zayna, formed the HEP, a
party with the explicit goal of campaigning within the National Assembly
for laws guaranteeing equal rights for the Kurds.

Turkey's other leaders were not as willing as Özal to recognize
Kurdish distinctiveness, and only two months after his death in April
1993, the Constitutional Court issued its decision declaring the HEP
illegal. In anticipation of this outcome, the Kurdish deputies had
resigned from the HEP only days before and formed a new organization,
the Democracy Party (Demokrasi Partisi--DEP). The DEP's objective was
similar to that of its predecessor: to promote civil rights for all
citizens of Turkey. When the DEP was banned in June 1994, Kurdish
deputies formed the new People's Democracy Party (Halkin Demokrasi
Partisi--HADEP).

The PKK initiated armed struggle against the state in 1984 with
attacks on gendarmerie posts in the southeast. The PKK's leader,
Abdullah Öcalan, had formed the group in the late 1970s while a student
in Ankara. Prior to the 1980 coup, Öcalan fled to Lebanon, via Syria,
where he continued to maintain his headquarters in 1994. Until October
1992, Öcalan's brother, Osman, had supervised PKK training camps in the
mountains separating northern Iraq from Turkey's Hakkâri and Mardin
provinces. It was from these camps that PKK guerrillas launched their
raids into Turkey. The main characteristic of PKK attacks was the use of
indiscriminate violence, and PKK guerrillas did not hesitate to kill
Kurds whom they considered collaborators. Targeted in particular were
the government's paid militia, known as village guards, and
schoolteachers accused of promoting forced assimilation. The extreme
violence of the PKK's methods enabled the government to portray the PKK
as a terrorist organization and to justify its own policies, which
included the destruction of about 850 border villages and the forced
removal of their populations to western Turkey.

In March 1993, the PKK dropped its declared objective of creating an
independent state of Kurdistan in the southeastern provinces that had
Kurdish majorities. Its new goal was to resolve the Kurdish problem
within a democratic and federal system. The loss of PKK guerrilla camps
in northern Iraq in October 1992, following defeat in a major
confrontation with Iraqi Kurdish forces supported by Turkish military
intervention, probably influenced this tactical change. At the same
time, Öcalan announced a unilateral, albeit temporary, cease-fire in
the PKK's war with Turkish security forces. The latter decision may also
have reflected the influence of Kurdish civilian leaders, who had been
urging an end to the violence in order to test Özal's commitment to
equal rights. Whether there were realistic prospects in the spring of
1993 for a political solution to the conflict in southeast Turkey may
never be known. Özal suffered a fatal heart attack in April, and his
successor, Demirel, did not appear inclined to challenge the military,
whose position continued to be that elimination of the PKK was the
appropriate way to pacify the region. Fighting between security forces
and PKK guerrillas, estimated to number as many as 15,000, resumed by
June 1993.

In early 1995, Turkey's other minorities--Arabs, Armenians, other
Caucasian peoples, Circassians, Georgians, Greeks, and Jews--tended
toward political quiescence. Arabs, who are concentrated in the
southeast to the west of the Kurds and north of the border with Syria,
had demonstrated over language and religious issues in the 1980s.
Because most of Turkey's Arabs belong to Islam's Alawi branch, whose
adherents also include the leading politicians of Syria, Ankara's often
tense relations with Syria tend to be further complicated.

The Armenian issue also adds tension to foreign affairs. The 60,000
Armenians estimated to be living in Turkey in the mid-1990s had
refrained from attracting any political attention to their community.
However, along with Armenians residing in Lebanon, France, Iran, and the
United States, the Republic of Armenia, which borders Turkey's
easternmost province of Kars, has embarrassed Turkey with highly
publicized annual commemorations of the Armenian genocide of
1915-16--which the Turkish government denies ever occurred (see World
War I, ch. 1). The Turkish government also condemns as harmful to
overall relations the periodic efforts by the United States Congress and
the parliaments of European states to pass resolutions condemning the
mass killings. Various clandestine Armenian groups--of which the most
prominent is the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
(ASALA)--have claimed responsibility for assassinations of Turkish
diplomatic personnel stationed in the Middle East and Europe. Such
assassinations have continued to occur in the 1990s. Unidentified
Turkish government officials frequently have leaked reports to the news
media accusing Armenia, Lebanon, and Syria of allowing Armenian
terrorists to receive training and support within their borders.